Tenet resigns!

[Slickster 0]

http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=9...,121665,00.html

 

CIA Director Tenet Resigns

 

Thursday, June 03, 2004

 

WASHINGTON — CIA Director George Tenet (search) has submitted his letter of resignation, President Bush announced on Thursday.

 

 

 

“I met with George last night in the White House," Bush said. "I had a good visit with him. He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving"

 

Tenet has been at the center of controversy over the government's response to terror threats prior to Sept. 11 and the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (search).

 

Bush said Tenet has "done a super job" and is the "kind of public servant you like to work with."

 

Tenet will serve as the CIA director until mid-July, Bush said, then CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin (search) will serve as acting director.

 

"I send my blessings to George and his family," Bush said from the White House lawn. "I look forward to working with him until the time he leaves the agency, and I wish him all the very best."

 

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., told Fox News that while he appreciates the years of hard work Tenet has put in, his resignation should be looked upon as a fresh start for the intelligence community.

 

"We should view this as an opportunity to do a better job in the future. The important thing is to ask 'How are we going to do a better job from now on?'" Lott said.

 

Tenet had been under fire for months in connection with intelligence failures related to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, specifically assertions the United States made about Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction and the threat from the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

 

In May, a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks released statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat posed by Al Qaeda before the terrorist hijackings. Tenet told the panel the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks would take five years to correct.

 

During his seven years at the CIA, speculation has swirled at times around whether Tenet would retire or be forced out. This speculation peaked after Sept. 11 and surged again after the flawed intelligence estimates about Iraq's fighting capability.

 

Lott said the CIA has recently begun to improve under Tenet.

 

"I think it has been getting better, particularly in last year or so," he told Fox News. "After 9/11 we found that there were a number of problems ... that is beginning to turn around."

 

Even when his political capital appeared to be tanking, Tenet managed to hang on with what some say was a fierce loyalty to Bush and the CIA personnel. A likable, chummy personality also helped keep him above water.

 

Conventional wisdom had been that Tenet, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, did not plan to stay on next year, no matter who won the White House. Tenet has been on the job since July 1997, an unusually lengthy tenure in a particularly taxing era for the intelligence community.

 

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called Tenet "an honorable and decent man who has served his country well in difficult times, and no one should make him a fall guy for anything."

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I turned in an application for that job, but they picked that other guy.

[Guest MikeSC]

I turned in an application for that job, but they picked that other guy.

Don't worry, Agent. The "boys" are "taking care of the problem". Payment is expected in full after the "operation".

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I turned in an application for that job, but they picked that other guy.

Stupid Affirmative Action...

[Anakin Flair 0]

I recently finished a book that detailed the history of the CIA at war, and Tennet was featured prominately in the book. From what I read, I believe he was a good man for the job, and he did it well.

[cynicalprofit 0]

If this is the same guy who went before congress and admited he screwed up, bought fucking time then.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

CP, just...just shut up. If anything, we want someone who's honorable enough to admit when he messed up, especially in that position.

 

The guy did his best...the pressure probably just was too much crap for his family. My best friend who used to work @ the Agency called me up today about this. I believe em when he says Tenet was good in the position.

 

As long as Tenet isn't a fall guy, then fine.

[Guest MD2020]

CP, just...just shut up. If anything, we want someone who's honorable enough to admit when he messed up, especially in that position.

 

The guy did his best...the pressure probably just was too much crap for his family. My best friend who used to work @ the Agency called me up today about this. I believe em when he says Tenet was good in the position.

 

As long as Tenet isn't a fall guy, then fine.

He might be honest and all, but there's been two huge intellegence failures under his watch. Heads have to roll.

[snuffbox 0]

CP, just...just shut up. If anything, we want someone who's honorable enough to admit when he messed up, especially in that position.

 

The guy did his best...the pressure probably just was too much crap for his family. My best friend who used to work @ the Agency called me up today about this. I believe em when he says Tenet was good in the position.

 

As long as Tenet isn't a fall guy, then fine.

Sorry guy, it doesnt matter if youre Honest Abe himself....if you cant do your job and keep your country safe - hit the bricks.

[Krankor 0]

if you cant do your job and keep your country safe - hit the bricks.

Well the article said he had been on the Job since 1997 and that was unusually lengthy tenure, so maybe he wasn't that bad. Bush didn't entirely keep his counry safe maybe he should have hit the bricks.

 

A likable, chummy personality also helped keep him above water.

Maybe if I was more chummy I could get over too...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Poor guy. It's easy to be a blame magnet when you're the last holdout from the Clinton years.

[snuffbox 0]

Bush didn't entirely keep his counry safe maybe he should have hit the bricks.

Yes Please.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

I thought the same thing about Tenet (i.e. that he's incompetent, etc.) until I read the Clarke book. Now, I'm convinced he's just a fall guy for a few failed intelligence operations. From the way Clarke characterized him, he was a pit bull against terrorism who was often struck down by his superiors as being too aggressive. He should be missed.

[Guest MikeSC]

Poor guy. It's easy to be a blame magnet when you're the last holdout from the Clinton years.

Actually, several terrorist attacks under his watch did him in more than being a Clinton appointee.

-=Mike

[bobobrazil1984 0]

Buy Bye Georgie boy. dont let the sliding-futuristic-door-inside-the-pentagon-made-from-alien-technology hit you in the ass on the way out.

 

However, i gotta think Bush missed a truly plum PR opportunity by not savagely firing him early in the year in direct response to the WMDs. That's what I would have done in that position (for purely political reasons of course)

[Firestarter 0]

It's a sad day when Tyler and Jobber are pretty much the only ones on the right side of an issue, any issue at all. And based on a "book" "by" Clarke - well, that just takes the cake.

 

God bless you, Mr Tenet. What America owes you is more than words can compass.

[Guest MikeSC]

Buy Bye Georgie boy. dont let the sliding-futuristic-door-inside-the-pentagon-made-from-alien-technology hit you in the ass on the way out.

 

However, i gotta think Bush missed a truly plum PR opportunity by not savagely firing him early in the year in direct response to the WMDs. That's what I would have done in that position (for purely political reasons of course)

If Bush fired him immediately, Tenet becomes a scapegoat.

 

However, SOMEBODY had to be "punished" for this --- God knows THAT has been criticized long enough --- and it was Tenet.

-=Mike

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Tenet was clearly going to end up being one of the fall guys for the bi-partisan whitewash known as the 9-11 Commission, whose purprose seems to be to ensure that no one with an R or D next to their name takes the fall.

[Guest MikeSC]

Tenet was clearly going to end up being one of the fall guys for the bi-partisan whitewash known as the 9-11 Commission, whose purprose seems to be to ensure that no one with an R or D next to their name takes the fall.

The 9/11 Commission is useless. It is simply a dog-and-pony show for the idiots out there who feel that anything bad that happens on Earth is caused by somebody's negligence.

-=Mike

...Sometimes, bad stuff just happens...

[Stephen Joseph 0]

*coughs*

said same thing Tyler/Jobber said...thanks *cough* Marney

 

meanie

[Guest MikeSC]

I dedicate this column --- to Marney.

“A Lout’s Game”

Intel problems way beyond Tenet.

 

CIA Director George Tenet has resigned. Good. Can Congress and the media resign next?

 

Tenet stacked up an impressive number of failures during his tenure, but pinning America's atrophied intelligence capabilities on him is a little like blaming Danish Defense Minister Soeren Gade for Denmark's weak defense. The problem is the national material with which both have had to work. Led by Congress and the media, the United States has hobbled its ability to conduct intelligence operations throughout the past three decades with its squeamishness and its gotcha political culture.

 

Intelligence is a dirty business — "a lout's game," in the words of writer Rebecca West. In the course of engaging in it, things will inevitably go wrong. Unless you are willing to accept these facts with some equanimity, you won't be able to do intelligence well. You will instead write Marquess of Queensberry rules for yourself and engage in paroxysms of self-blame when they aren't followed properly.

 

Since the emasculating Church hearings of the 1970s, this has been the story of the CIA. It seemed that 9/11 would change all that. Instead of picking ourselves apart with self-criticism, we would meet the dangers confronting us, even in the face of setbacks and mistakes. Alas, in the explosion of media and congressional attention to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and in the self-flagellating 9/11 Commission hearings, it has been the 1970s all over again.

 

In the matter of Abu Ghraib, Sen. John Warner called three generals back from a war zone to testify before his committee, providing more TV time for himself and other senators as they repeated questions that they had already asked other officials and that were being addressed in internal military inquiries. The media gleefully played along, the New York Times in particular urging Warner not to let a sense of proportion get in the way of his flogging of the scandal.

 

The 9/11 Commission has engaged in similar grandstanding, seemingly forgetting that the catastrophic attacks that day were the doing of our enemies, whatever our specific failings at the time. The old story line was back — nefarious, high U.S. government officials were responsible for victimizing innocents, in this case "the 9/11 widows."

 

When a legalistic political culture obsessed with scandal and victimization meets the real world, the consequences are catastrophic. During the 1990s, the CIA was consciously made to look more like the FBI, which operates under the constrictions of the American legal system. The CIA was prohibited from contracting with foreign operatives with shady backgrounds. This meant its work would be consistent, in the words of former New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli, the prohibition's author, with "American values."

 

Although this specific prohibition has been loosened, the impulse behind it survived Sept. 11. In the wake of Abu Ghraib, critics have been pushing the Bush administration, with some success, to limit itself in the war on terror to interrogation techniques that would be lawful here in the United States.

 

But the foundation for American values is America, and those values won't endure unless the nation withstands assaults by enemies who care nothing for Miranda rights or any other legal niceties. They have to be met in a dirty, shadowy war. The men waging it can't be looking over their shoulders at which publicity-hungry congressman might be second-guessing them next. Prior to 9/11, a chief obstacle in the way of our counterterrorist officials and operatives was fear — fear of running afoul of some rule, fear of being abused in front of a congressional committee, fear of being splashed on the front page of the Washington Post.

 

That fear has probably returned, if it ever fully went away. We will know that we have established the predicate for waging an effective intelligence war when the next time something goes wrong, it is corrected quickly, but without an orgy of groveling self-abuse. Unfortunately, by then George Tenet will likely be a distant memory indeed.

http://nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200406040847.asp

-=Mike

[justsoyouknow 0]

The 9/11 Commission is useless. It is simply a dog-and-pony show for the idiots out there who feel that anything bad that happens on Earth is caused by somebody's negligence.

-=Mike

...Sometimes, bad stuff just happens...

Actually, several terrorist attacks under his watch did him in more than being a Clinton appointee.

[Guest MikeSC]

The 9/11 Commission is useless. It is simply a dog-and-pony show for the idiots out there who feel that anything bad that happens on Earth is caused by somebody's negligence.

              -=Mike

...Sometimes, bad stuff just happens...

Actually, several terrorist attacks under his watch did him in more than being a Clinton appointee.

Several attacks did come under his watch. Didn't make them HIS fault. To steal a line from the column I posted, "pinning America's atrophied intelligence capabilities on him is a little like blaming Danish Defense Minister Soeren Gade for Denmark's weak defense."

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week 0]

So, wait... You've changed your mind? This is unprecedented.

[Guest Doyo]

the following was posted on May 25 at http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com

 

Tenet, Powell and Armitage to go - EXCLUSIVE

 

25th May 2004 - Update

 

by Simon Aronowitz

 

Sources close to the Bush administration have informed ThoughtCrimeNews that CIA Director, George Tenet, Secretary of State, Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, will be forced to resign their positions, possibly before the end of this week.

 

Whilst some would consider Tenet, Powell and Armitage to be team players in George W Bush's administration, our sources advise us that in fact these three have been caught out on something for which there can be no reconciliation.

 

As yet, the media are largely unaware of the recent events involving these three characters, namely a plot to assassinate President Bush and Vice-President Cheney as well as Speaker of the House, J Dennis Hastert and Senate President Pro Tempore, Ted Stevens. In the event that these four individuals were to be killed, the next in line to the US Presidency would be none other than the Secretary of State, currently Colin Powell.

 

Should these resignations take place, as we expect,  in the coming days, the pre-emptive publication of this story will serve to illustrate that our sources have provided us with sound information, not only of the impending departures but also the reason for them.

 

Story developing...

[Guest MikeSC]

So, wait... You've changed your mind? This is unprecedented.

I don't like seeing people getting fired solely for political expedience.

-=Mike

[Guest cobainwasmurdered]

CP, just...just shut up. If anything, we want someone who's honorable enough to admit when he messed up, especially in that position.

 

Feel teh anger~! The guy was honorable? Let's give him a medal!

 

Honor has nothing to do with wether he did a good job or not.

 

I'm not saying he shouldn't have resigned but excusing the man solely on the basis that he admitted he was wrong and that you know someone who admired him?

 

Murderers have admirers. Should we pat them on the back if they admit they were wrong?

[cynicalprofit 0]

CP, just...just shut up. If anything, we want someone who's honorable enough to admit when he messed up, especially in that position.

 

The guy did his best...the pressure probably just was too much crap for his family. My best friend who used to work @ the Agency called me up today about this. I believe em when he says Tenet was good in the position.

 

As long as Tenet isn't a fall guy, then fine.

If you fuck up on your job, YOU GET FIRED. Doesn't matter what position you hold, thats what happens.